Tell Me Something About Children
by Flitter-Flutter
Summary: During the transfer to East City, Roy asks Riza an unexpected question.


**This one was an idea I had for a long time, but had trouble actually writing…there are several times throughout the anime where I couldn't help but think, "Gee, Roy must be feeling pretty guilty now…" so that's where this comes from. Also, I always thought it interesting how there's a side of Roy that he's only ever shown to Riza and Hughes, so I was writing with that idea in mind as well.**

**Obviously, it uploaded fine.**

**I've made a small edit, nothing earth-shattering that changes the story or anything. I replaced two words...thank you Puddycat for pointing it out!**

**And the usual disclaimer: **

**I don't own FMA. If I owned it, Riza and Roy would hurry up and get married. Also, Roy would never have lost an eye. Stupid Archer...**

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The train ride to East City passed mostly in relative silence. Riza could swear that for the last several hours, she had heard nothing but the clattering of train wheels, the rush of air outside the window, the gentle murmur of two passengers conversing several seats away.

On the one hand, Riza welcomed the quiet. It was certainly an improvement over the recent chaos. The Tucker incident, the circumstances with the serial killer, the strong possibility that there was another murderer on the loose…it had been hell for everyone.

Sitting on a quiet train bound far away from Central was a chance to unwind.

Or at least it would have been, had it not been for Riza's traveling companion.

Roy Mustang had also been silent, staring out the window and watching the world go by. However, far from taking a breather, the newly-promoted Colonel was brooding, lost in what were obviously deep and troubling thoughts.

It was hard to relax, Riza mused, if the man sitting right across from you clearly wasn't.

She wondered if she should say something, but to her surprise, he was the first to speak.

"Wonder how the boys are," he said, conversationally.

Riza folded her hands in her lap and turned to face the window. The mountain peaks going by looked desolate and lonely. She didn't reply to him, until a moment's silence made her realize he was expecting a response.

"They're probably very flattered right now," she said casually. "You know that due to their actions in Youswell, people are saying there is a champion of the people in the military's ranks."

A ghost of the smirk characteristic to his better moods crossed Roy's face.

"'Champion of the people,' huh," he said. "That's high praise. I just hope Fullmetal doesn't let it go to his head."

Another long silence followed, during which the smirk disappeared and the previous brooding expression returned.

This time, Riza was the first to break the silence.

"Something's bothering you, Sir." It wasn't a question.

Roy turned to look at her. His dark eyes searched her face, nervously, as though there was something he wanted to ask her but was afraid to. At length, he sighed, and his shoulders slumped slightly.

"Hawkeye," he said, his voice carefully controlled. "Tell me something about children."

Riza's eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed as she studied his face, wondering if he was joking. Not seeing any humor in his face, she sighed, straightening up.

"This is a strange topic of conversation, Sir. Wouldn't the major be a better person to ask?"

Roy shook his head. "No. Hughes would only use the opportunity to tell me I should find a wife, and then brag about how cute his daughter is. Besides, he's not here."

Riza frowned slightly. "Surely I'm not the right person to ask. I don't have any…"

"But you have a far better handle on them than I do. I've seen it. You have…what's it called? 'Motherly instinct'…'feminine intuition'…I don't know what it is, but you seem to know how to deal with children."

Riza thought back, and, now that she thought of it, whenever there was an unpleasant situation and there were children involved, the task of comforting the young people and making sure they were okay had, more often than not, fallen squarely on her shoulders.

"Okay, Sir," she said finally, relaxing a little.

"How do children look at us grown-ups, and how do they see our mistakes?" Roy took a deep breath, as though mustering up the courage to continue. "And how do they view death?"

Riza lowered her eyes to her lap, where her hands were still folded.

"Really young children," she started, "are open to everything. They always see the good in people, and look to us grown-ups for guidance. Some view us as being flawless creatures, incapable of sin, and that is why they are always excited about growing up. So, if an adult harms them in some way, they don't know how to handle it, and will see what happened as their fault. If an adult is hurting in some way, the child feels it's his responsibility to comfort them."

Riza looked back at the Colonel, who had resumed staring out the window, his ear turned towards her. She sighed, and began again.

"Death is a very hard concept for young children to understand," she said. "They think it's like falling asleep; they don't grasp its implications."

Roy sighed, crossing his arms. "Thanks for the tutorial in four and five year-olds, Hawkeye, but I was hoping for something a little older...say, eleven or twelve?"

Riza raised an eyebrow. "This wouldn't have something to do with the Elrics, would it?"

Roy's frown deepened as he nodded.

Riza stared at him for a moment, and then continued. "Older children—preteens, adolescents—are old enough to understand that death is inevitable, and that it is not like sleep. However, they sometimes don't grasp its permanent nature, even when it is staring them in the face. The realization that it _is_ forever, and that it could happen to them, or to people they care about, is usually a devastating one."

She was entering uncomfortable territory, she knew. He still had the brooding expression, but now it was tinged with something else. She finally recognized it as guilt.

_Why guilt?_

"And grown-ups?" Roy asked. "What is the adolescent's view of us?"

She frowned in thought. "It depends on the adult. For the most part, they still look up to us, but they know we aren't infallible. It is around that age that they start seeing us for the flawed people we are."

Roy seemed to be chewing on that thought. "Flawed, huh?"

"And sometimes, they don't understand us, the way we do things, or the way we think. Some things they see as inherently wrong are things we've done so many times we don't even bat an eyelid anymore."

"And how do they view adult failures?"

He was obviously pushing the conversation somewhere; trying to get to something indirectly that he didn't want to face head on. Riza decided to humor him.

"If it's a small thing, they'll understand. Small failures are human. But big mistakes, unforgivable sins…if they see grown-ups messing up in major ways, they feel betrayed. They expect us to act our age, and when we do something terrible or selfish, they think, this isn't right, you're an adult, you should know better than this."

She was staring him in the eyes now, but he wasn't meeting them. "They look to us to emulate, and when we fall short, it can damage them."

She sighed, and unfolded her hands. Crossing her arms and legs, she leaned back. "Do you want to hear about teenagers now?"

Roy smiled humorlessly. "No, I remember that time well. Body changing, noticing that the opposite sex is quite attractive—" here, Riza frowned, but he either didn't notice or didn't care "—questioning authority, thinking the world revolved around me, caught between childhood and adulthood and not knowing what to do about it…"

"I was there, Sir, you don't have to tell me," she said. "Anyway, why are you asking about children all of a sudden?"

He exhaled sharply, running a weary hand through his jet-black hair.

"I messed up, Hawkeye," he said quietly, "and the consequences were almost deadly. I don't want to make that kind of mistake again."

"Sir?" she asked.

Roy folded his hands and stared down at them. "Remember how upset the kid was after Nina Tucker's death?"

Riza nodded, slowly, never letting her eyes leave his face.

"And I figured, 'he's entered adult society; if he doesn't buckle down and learn to be an adult, it could hurt him later on.' So, I basically told him to put it behind him, _right now._"

He looked up at her, asking for feedback. She gave it.

"I understand your thinking, Sir," she said, gently, "but it wouldn't be fair to ask an adult to work his way through such a loss so quickly. So how much more unfair is it, to ask such a thing of a child?"

Her question hung between them. Riza stole a glance outside, and realized it was becoming dark. The train wheels continued their endless rattling.

"It gets worse," Roy spoke, his eyebrows lowering. "I should have known he'd react badly to being ordered to take over Tucker's research, after what happened. And he did. He came and told me he'd rather help track down that serial killer. And when I refused, he decided he would investigate on his own."

"Sir…" Hawkeye said, but Roy wasn't finished.

"And I let him go," he said, his voice still carefully controlled. "I let him do it, and…you know the rest."

One could have heard a pin drop, in the empty quiet that followed.

"Sir," Riza said, slowly. "You shouldn't blame yourself for what happened."

Roy's frown deepened. "But, what if I'd done something differently? If I'd found some way to keep him from running off. Hawkeye, you saw him when we got him out of there. I've not seen anyone look so terrified since Ishval…he just sort of broke down, in front of everyone."

Riza furrowed her brow, trying to think of something else to say.

"I think…" she said. "I think it worked out as well as it could have. Think, Sir, what would have happened had Edward not been there."

"Hawkeye?" Roy looked surprised at what she'd just said.

"That Rockbell girl _would_ have died," she continued, "and we would still be trying to solve that case. It was Edward's disappearance that led Hughes to making the connection between the refrigerated trucks and the serial killer."

Roy looked away.

"Are you saying Ed almost getting himself killed was a good thing?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm just saying it could have been a lot worse, and stop feeling guilty about things that were beyond your control."

Roy didn't answer. Riza sighed, pursing her lips.

"I think your problem, Sir, is that you and he are too much alike. I think, had your roles been reversed, you would have done exactly the same thing he did, and vice versa."

Roy's eyes widened, as he turned back to look at her.

"In the future, I believe you would do well to remember he's still a child, and is going to think like a child. If you did that, you could maybe avoid this sort of thing later on."

She straightened up. "And also remember he'll be a teenager soon, and you'll have to be even more careful not to tread on raw nerves then."

Roy sighed. "Thank you, Hawkeye. I'll keep that in mind."

He stared at her for a long time; finally she spoke again.

"Is there something else you wanted to ask, Sir?"

His moody expression had disappeared, she noted; it had been replaced by a slight smile.

"Your hair, Lieutenant," he said, and she recognized that his good mood was coming back. "Don't you think it would look better if there were more of it?"

Riza blinked, as one of her hands reached up and absently tugged on the ends of her short hair. "Sir?"

It had been a brief comment, but very unexpected, and Riza found herself staring at her reflection in the window, questioning how her superior had gone from worrying that he'd screwed up to commenting about her hair--her _hair,_ of all things!--in the blink of an eye.

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**Phew! This one was difficult to write. I made some statements about children that I'm not entirely sure are true. For Riza's explanation of how children view things, I was drawing rather heavily on how I felt about certain things when I was age 5, or 10, but I'm not sure if the same is true for everyone...please don't spear me...Also, I feel like the ending is kind of rushed and has nothing to do with the rest of it, but...I don't know...(goes into a Ritsu rant)**


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